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Slam

Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
1 of 1 copy available

Brought to you by Penguin.
'There was this time when everything seemed to have come together. And so obviously it was time to go and screw it all up.'
Sam is sixteen and a skater. Just so there are no terrible misunderstandings: skating = skateboarding. There's no ice. Life is ticking along nicely for Sam; his Mum's got rid of her rubbish boyfriend, he's thinking about college and he's met someone. Alicia.
Then a little accident happens. One with big consequences for someone just finding his way in life. Sam can't run (let alone skate) away from this one. He's a boy facing a man's problems and the question is - has he got what it takes to confront them?
Slam, from the acclaimed author of About a Boy and High Fidelity is a teenage novel about a boy who has to grow up in big, big hurry. It is The Catcher in the Rye for the 21st century.
'Very funny...very real' Daily Telegraph
'Hornby gets his point across with the subtlety and skill of a born novelist who always deserves to be read' Independent
'A moving read for anyone' Elle
Nick Hornby has captivated readers and achieved widespread critical acclaim for his comic, well-observed adult novels About a Boy, A Long Way Down, Juliet, Naked, How to be Good and High Fidelity. His three works of non-fiction, 31 Songs (shortlisted for the National Book Critics Circle Award), Fever Pitch (winner of the William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award) and The Complete Polysyllabic Spree are also available from Penguin.

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  • Reviews

    • Publisher's Weekly

      November 26, 2007
      Hoult, who played the part of Marcus Brewer in the screen adaptation of Hornby's About a Boy
      , does a credible job—perhaps too credible—as Sam, the 16-year-old hero of Hornby's first YA novel. His tone is conversational, and he relates Sam's story about inadvertently getting his girlfriend pregnant, with little variation in emphasis: he's the epitome of the cool, unfazed teen even in the face of impending doom. But the combination of Hornby's authentic dialogue and Hoult's convincing reading produces some passages of teenspeak, especially between Sam and girlfriend Alicia—“Dunno/ Me neitherâ€-type repartee—that is hard-going as entertainment. Hoult adopts a slightly deeper inflection for the part of Tony Hawk, whose poster Sam uses as a sounding board, but, comically, the quintessential California skateboarder speaks his lines (quotes from his autobiography, which Sam has memorized) with a British inflection. Overall, the audio showcases Hornby's skill at getting deeply inside the mind of his character. Sam, the most talkative teen ever to grind a skateboard, says, “Listen, I know you don't want to hear about every single little moment†and proceeds to recount every single little moment anyway. Ages 12-up. Simultaneous release with the Putnam hardcover (Reviews, Oct. 8).

    • Publisher's Weekly

      Starred review from October 8, 2007
      A highly companionable narrator, 16-year-old Sam Jones has spent his life coming to terms with having been an unwanted baby—his parents married because his 16-year-old mother was pregnant, and they divorced soon after. He knows better, in other words, than to make the same mistake. But by the time he learns he's going to be a father himself, he's not even dating Alicia, the mother, anymore. Devastated about how fatherhood will wreck his future, Sam, a skateboarder, talks things through with a poster of Tony Hawk, who “answers” in quotes from his biography, which Sam has read 40 or 50 times. Sam also credits Hawk with a magical ability to transport him to his own future, where he participates in dream-state scenes that actually do occur later. Like Hornby's adult bestsellers (High Fidelity
      ; About a Boy
      ), his YA debut features witty dialogue, a winning if flawed hero and wry insights into the male psyche, making this book a sure bet for Hornby fans of any age. Whether Hornby will find a new audience may be chancier—the readers attracted by Sam's skateboarding talk might want more action and less absorption in relationships than his craftily structured novel offers. Ages 12-up.

    • AudioFile Magazine
      Narrator Nicholas Hoult is best known as Marcus in the film version of author Nick Hornby's ABOUT A BOY. Now he narrates Hornby's latest novel while still a teenager himself--not surprisingly, he nails the tone of a Londoner whose life goes unexpectedly off the rails. Sam is obsessed with skateboarding and Tony Hawk, the world's greatest skater. Life is going well--his teachers are recommending art college, and he has a beautiful girlfriend. In skating, a slam is a hard fall; in Sam's life, the slam is unexpected fatherhood. Sam becomes a father at 16--the same age his mother had him. Hoult makes Sam an entirely believable teenager--his dialogue is slouchy, like a teenager's, and his light tone maintains Hornby's humor. A.B. 2008 Audies Finalist (c) AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

Languages

  • English

Levels

  • Lexile® Measure:740
  • Text Difficulty:3-4

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